Episode 46: New Threats On The Block?
A plethora of articles have been lighting up our newsfeeds and letting us know that there are new threats on the block: killware, RansomCloud, and extortion. But are they going to trump ransomware – or is this just a bit of media FUD?
Killware: the next thing we need to worry about. Apparently this is defined as anything that has an outcome resulting in death…Seems quite broad really, and ranges from hackers targeting a water treatment plant and poisoning the water flow to a ransomware attack that takes a hospital offline, forcing patients to be rerouted. It’s less about the technique and more about the outcome.
RansomCloud: Kev gets into a good ranty flow on this one. Kevin Mitnick coined the term “RansomCloud” in a video a few years ago – and honestly, Kev (*our* Kev) does the best job of explaining the “threat”, so we won’t try to explain it here. Just listen to the episode.
Extortion: the one comes off the back of the Twitch takedown, which highlighted the idea that it is as beneficial to a cyber criminal to access a trove of useful sensitive personal data and look to extort a company for that as it is to go through the effort of ransomware. Double extortion – which you can read about here – is already a thing, so this technique is almost a step back. Or is it?
So what does the team think? Are these threats, risks, or just a bit of good old-fashioned FUD? Is Ransomware a thing of the past – or is it still the big bad wolf of cyber?
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https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-governments-turn-tables-ransomware-gang-revil-by-pushing-it-offline-2021-10-21/
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/14/twitch-takedown-is-extortion-the-new-ransomware/
https://securityboulevard.com/2021/10/killware-hype-is-bigger-than-the-threat-for-now/
https://research.nccgroup.com/2021/10/11/snapmc-skips-ransomware-steals-data/
The podcast taking cybersecurity personally
There's a lot of cool techy stuff going down in cybersecurity, and we love it. But you can't deny that a lot the time we humans get forgotten. Our podcast takes a not-so-serious look at issues in security from a human point of view. Covering social engineering to hacker motivations and everything in between, we chat through security stories and themes and what they mean to us: the oft-neglected humans behind the screen. Apart from Kev, Kev is a cyborg.
These weekly podcasts come in two main flavors. We’re either ranting about themes close to the heart of us security types, or we’re discussing threats and vulnerabilities that have hit headlines – or slipped under the radar – in recent weeks.
Join Chris Pace (tech advocate and keeper of the coloring pencils), Kev Breen (pro blue teamer, also known as 'Mr Nothing to CVE here...'), Max Vetter (former dark web detective and pretty cool guy), and Paul Bentham (ex-gov. type and Immersive Labs product guru) as they wend their way through the murky world of Cyber Humanity.